When the two Cunard sisters entered service in the autumn of 1907, White Star had nothing remotely comparable in terms of size and speed. The reality, however, is that the historical documentation shows this not to be the case.īritannic ready for launching on slip No.2 at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Leaving aside the Olympic/Titanic switch conspiracy theories, the legends actually start at the beginning of the story, with the notion that the White Star Line had always proposed a trio of ships to compete with Cunard’s Lusitania and Mauretania. Much of what we read on the Titanic is often ‘apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate’, but, while the more dedicated Titanic buffs can see through the historical haze, for ship enthusiasts with less of a fixation on the White Star behemoths, or even the general public who may even see the story of Titanic as more of an event, rather than a ship, it probably comes as no surprise to see them taken in by the attractive myths surrounding the ship. This 40-year lapse may explain how some of the facts associated with Titanic have been related through numerous fables, legends and myths. It was only the release of Twentieth Century-Fox’s film Titanic in 1953, starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, combined with the publication of Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember three years later, that the story of the legendary White Star liner fired the public’s imagination. In fact, it’s curious to think that, in light of the considerable interest in Titanic, until the 1950s the story of the ship had been largely forgotten. W hite Star’s most famous ships haven’t always been as much a part of the public consciousness as they are today. A White Star Line publicity postcard for Britannic, based on the 1914 oil painting by Charles Dixon.
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